Researchers leaving Fla. and taking their grants

The Associated Press

Monday

Dec 29, 2008 at 2:27 PM

The University of Florida is down research dollars, dropping 3.5 percent from 2006-07 to $561.6 million last year. Win Phillips, vice president for research at UF, said the Gainesville school's reputation as a prominent research university has helped it retain more top faculty.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - When a lead Florida State University researcher needed five faculty members last year to start a landmark center dedicated to studying autism, state budget cuts prevented the school from hiring the additional professors.

The Ohio State University, however, had the money, recruited the researcher - and his more than $1 million in federal grants - and in a few years could be reaping the benefits of an autism program that may bring $10 million annually to the school.

Statewide, university officials fear more such exoduses as lawmakers prepare to meet in a special session next month to discuss another round of financial reductions.

The 11 Florida universities are expecting a $97 million cut to their budgets for the current year.

But in addition to the surface-level slashing, university leaders fear the residual effect of pushing out top school researchers who will take their federal grants with them.

More than $1.4 billion in grant money was brought into the state by public university researchers last year. About 84 percent of it was federal or private money that likely follows the researcher if he or she leaves the state.

That's money that also pumps up local economies by helping to hire graduate students and staff - people who pay taxes, eat at restaurants and otherwise fuel local businesses.

"I've been here for 40 years and we have worked our tails off to get a little bit of national and international recognition, and to see it destroyed in two years tears my guts out," said Kirby Kemper, FSU's vice president for research. "When you start losing your young hot shots, it takes so long to get them back and rebuild your reputation."

FSU's grant earnings in the 2007-08 school year totaled about $196 million, up 1.5 percent from $193 million the previous year.

Overall, the grant money earned by Florida's public universities increased by less than 1 percent during the same period, and may decline this year.

Kemper said FSU has lost 19 "heavy hitter" researchers in the past year to other universities around the country. Several of them were in high-need areas such as computational biology, oceanography and physics.

While other states also are suffering budget cutbacks, Kemper said many universities are willing to put out the money for rising stars because of the long-term benefits.

"It's the future generation that we lose when they go," Kemper said.

State lawmakers will be looking to make up for a $2.1 billion shortfall in the current year's budget when they meet in Tallahassee for the special session beginning Jan. 5.

This year's total projected deficit so far is $3.3 billion, a 12 percent reduction in what lawmakers originally planned to spend.

Next year could be even worse, and universities are bracing for more bad news.

"Of much greater concern for us is 2009-2010," said Florida Atlantic University Vice President of Finance Ken Jessell, who is expecting a $7 million cut to the school's current-year budget. "There's really nothing left to spare. We pulled the low-hanging fruit beginning in 2001. It's long gone."

According to the state Board of Governors, which oversees the state's public universities, FAU brought in $33.8 million in research awards last year, down 26 percent from the 2006-07 school year.

The University of Florida also is down research dollars, dropping 3.5 percent from 2006-07 to $561.6 million last year.

Win Phillips, vice president for research at UF, said the Gainesville school's reputation as a prominent research university has helped it retain more top faculty.

But it is down 105 professors compared with a few years ago, 60 percent of whom Phillips said were bringing in grants and contracts.

"When you have a creative person doing well, filing patents, bringing in money, and you lose them, you've lost the whole future," Phillips said.

For top researchers, the salary paid by the state is minimal compared with what they bring in with grant funding, Phillips added.

"There is a tremendous amplification of loss to the education business and the economy when a person big in the research arena leaves," he said.

Research funding itself also is being cut, leaving important studies undone, said Richard Podemski, associate vice president for research at the University of West Florida in Pensacola.

He had a professor write a proposal recently to do a water quality analysis project for the state worth about $50,000.

The study was to look at Escambia Bay, an area where fish have been found to have high levels of toxic chemicals known as polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs.

But the funding was eliminated.

"So the universities can't contribute to the local economy or the improvement of the local environment like they used to," Podemski said. "It's a downward spiral."

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.